Nurungji is a traditional Korean food made of scorched rice. After boiling and serving rice, a thin crust of scorched rice will usually be left in the bottom of the cooking pot. This yellowed scorched state is described as nureun (눌은) in Korean; nurungji derives from this adjective.
Nurungji can be eaten in its crisp state as a snack or as an after meal rice tea by adding hot water, or reboiled with water to make nureun bap (눌은밥) or nurungji bap (누룽지밥). Nurungji in its broad sense also refers to the crisp crust that forms at the bottom of the pots and pans when cooking various rice dishes such as dolsot bibimbap (돌솥 비빔밥) and bokkeumbap.
South Korean companies made nurungji available in various pre-packaged forms around the mid-2000s. Besides sweet fried nurungji snacks and instant nurungji to make nureunbap, many nurungji-flavored products were also developed such as candies and tea. Nurungi is also used as an ingredient in a variety of new dishes like nurungji baeksuk and nurungji pizza.